


As good as a rest

by Joracwyn



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s04e12 Tangent, Episode: s04e15 Chain Reaction, F/M, St. Patrick's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 08:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30102780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joracwyn/pseuds/Joracwyn
Summary: It's St Patrick's Day and Teal'c wants to go to an Irish pub.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 15
Kudos: 63





	As good as a rest

**Author's Note:**

> The events of Tangent took place around the middle of March, right? Well, for this fic, they did.
> 
> Thanks to Nellie for the super speedy beta. 
> 
> Happy St Patrick's Day everyone!

_ March 17th, 2000 _

For the ninety-second time that day, Sam hit  _ Start _ on the F-302 power simulation. She slumped back in her chair, ran one hand through her hair and reached for her coffee cup with the other. She frowned at it, wondering if she had time for a commissary run before the inevitable error occurred, as it had already done ninety-one times.

She was still staring at the empty cup when someone knocked on the door. 

“Hey Teal'c.” Her automatic greeting faltered as she registered what he was wearing. “Um, nice shirt.”

He opened his jacket a little wider and Sam blinked. The green fabric seemed to glow. “Thank you, Major Carter. It is in honor of St Patrick's Day.”

“Right. Is that today?” 

“It is. I wish to celebrate the occasion.”

With half her mind still on the simulation running in the background, Sam was having trouble following Teal'c's drift. “OK?”

Daniel appeared at Teal'c's side, breathless, like he'd been running. 

“Hey, Sam.”

“Daniel?” Sam hoped that Daniel's usual flow of words would start to fill in the holes in this unexpected conversation. 

“Has he asked you yet?”

Maybe not. 

“No. Guys, what—”

“Teal'c wants to have a drink at an Irish pub for St Patrick's Day. Want to come?”

She looked helplessly at her computer screen, panic flexing its cold fingers in her chest. “I can’t, I mean, I've just started…”

“Come on, Sam,” Daniel said, plaintively. "You don't have to stay long — I'll have to leave early to pack for Chicago, anyway."

“I believe an evening off will help focus your mind.” Teal'c didn't bother with persuasion; his tone said he would carry her out of the SGC if she tried to refuse. 

“Alright. Give me five minutes to change. I don't have anything green to wear, though.” Sam gestured at Teal'c's eye-popping shirt and Daniel's khaki jacket. “Nothing except my uniform, anyway.”

“I do not believe your lack of suitable apparel will cause concern.” 

“OK. Thanks,” she said absently, as her eyes lingered on the screen. Still no error. Maybe this time… 

She gritted her teeth and clicked the monitor off. 

As they made their way to the exit, Sam turned to the others. 

“Wait,” she said, feigning dismay. “We can't go to O'Malley's. We're banned. Sorry, Teal'c.”

Teal'c was unconcerned. “That will not be a problem. We will go to Rilea's Pub.”

“Really? Have you ever been there before?”

“I have not.”

“Then…” 

Cutting off her question, he said, “It is customary to socialise in an Irish pub on this day.”

It was unusual for Teal'c to oppose her quite so abruptly, and Sam blinked a few times while her mind backtracked. “OK, Rilea's it is then. Did someone tell the colonel?”

“Colonel O'Neill is not on base.”

This seemed to be news to Daniel too. “Really?” he said, at the same moment that Sam asked, “Should we call him?”

Teal'c silenced them both with one raised eyebrow. “Doctor Fraiser ordered him to rest following our time stranded in the F-301. I believe he is following her orders and will not answer his phone.”

“Wow.” Daniel’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline as he called the elevator. “Janet must have put the fear of the big needles into him to make him stay home.”

Teal’c said nothing as he took his place in the elevator. But it was a nothing that shouted satisfaction. 

* * *

The pub was obviously popular. The lot was full, so they parked in a side street and walked the rest of the way. Misty rain drifted through the air and Sam pulled up the collar of her jacket. Her newly-short hair did nothing to protect her neck from the damp. 

They could hear the pub from two hundred paces. Music spilled from its windows, a rollicking, twisting melody that Sam’s unaccustomed ear couldn't follow, but one that sent electricity dancing along every nerve. 

Daniel pulled open the door and the unmuffled sound washed over them on a wave of hot air, carrying the smell of sweaty bodies and beer. 

“Guinness?” she shouted at Daniel and Teal’c over the noise.

They both agreed, Teal’c with some hesitation. Sam smiled to herself. Whatever Teal’c’s ulterior motive was in dragging them here tonight, he obviously hadn’t considered all the ramifications. She resisted the urge to get him a whiskey. Guinness would probably be punishment enough.

She forced her way over to the bar, towing Teal’c and Daniel along in her wake, and ordered the drinks. Then she leaned against the bar and let her eyes drift over the sea of people. The only areas well-lit were the pool tables; even the stage was in semi-darkness, but since most of the musicians had their eyes closed it obviously wasn't a problem. There were five men in the band: one playing a massive squeezebox, his fingers moving in a blur over the buttons; one looking like he was going to take someone’s eye out playing the fiddle. There was a guitarist sporting an impressive beard and a baby-faced guy playing the flute, whose thready notes were lost underneath the bellowing of the accordion. At the edge of the stage was the fifth man, sitting with a broad, flat drum propped up on one knee, his face turned away from the bar towards the other players, adding the galloping rhythm to their tune. Sam's breath caught. The drummer's face was turned away, towards the other players, but Sam couldn’t mistake the lean arms, the capable hands. She'd seen those same arms resting on the briefing table many times, those fingers playing with a pencil in the same way as he now played the tiny drumstick.

The tune changed to something softer and lighter and the colonel stopped playing. He tucked the stick into his other hand and reached down for the glass by one leg of his chair. Sam tore her gaze away from him to find that Teal’c had been unashamedly watching her watch the colonel.

Before she could decide what to say, Daniel leaned in. 

“Teal’c? Did you know Jack was going to be here?”

“It was from Colonel O’Neill that I learned of this establishment.”

“That doesn’t answer his question,” Sam shot back.

Teal’c acknowledged this with an inclination of his head. “I did indeed know that O’Neill intended to play here this evening.”

“How long have you known about this?” She gestured towards her commanding officer and the four other musicians.

“For some time.”

Daniel was standing on tiptoe, trying to get a proper look at the colonel. “Should we get closer?”

Sam passed them their drinks. “You guys go ahead, I'm OK here.”

Daniel immediately pushed into the crowd. After a moment, Teal’c bowed and followed him. 

Sam perched on a vacant stool and drank deeply, trying to puzzle out the situation. It felt wrong, somehow, to intrude on him here, but Teal’c had obviously decided it was something they needed to do. Maybe he thought it would be good to just spend some time together, outside the mountain, no pressure. 

Things had gone spectacularly wrong these last few months. Every glorious achievement was succeeded by a crushing failure. The Attanik armbands; the za'tarc incident. Fixing the time loop; being imprisoned and having their memories altered. Testing the F-301; nearly losing Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c to the cold of space. 

Her fingers tightened on her glass as memories resurfaced from the day of the test. Watching the blip that was the colonel and Teal’c disappear from the screen, hearing his voice over the radio. In her own mind the words echoed with the fear he would never let himself express. 

_ “Cheyenne, we have a problem.” _

Sam took a long drink, swallowing the memory of her despair. 

Her dad was right. They shouldn’t have cut corners by trying to salvage the stolen craft. They should have built one from scratch in the first place. She should have worked harder, figured out the propulsion, the power, all of the physics. She was probably the only one who could. 

Her eyes fixed themselves, unseeing, on the crowd around the pool table as her thoughts returned to her lab and the simulations running in her absence. 

“Seen a leprechaun, Carter?” a voice asked softly, breath warm on the shell of her ear.

She resisted the impulse to jump to her feet.

“Colonel!”

He leaned against the bar next to her. He didn’t seem annoyed that they’d found him out. Instead, he was smiling at her. He looked relaxed. Happy, even.

“I’m sorry to intrude, sir. Teal’c brought us here — we didn’t know—”

“Relax, Carter. It wasn’t exactly a secret.” He shrugged. “I would have told you eventually.”

Sam dropped her eyes to her drink. She still felt awkward, so she took another gulp. According to the colonel there was nothing beer couldn’t fix.

When she looked back at the colonel, he was still smiling down at her. She searched for something to say. “I didn't know you played the… drum thing.”

He turned, resting his elbows on the bar so his head was level with hers. “The bodhran, Carter,” he corrected. “My uncle taught me when I was about nine. He said if I couldn't sit still, at least I could fidget with rhythm.”

Sam imagined the man before her as a kid, a whirlwind of restless energy, and his family's need to focus it into less destructive channels. They had her sympathy. She felt like that herself most days. 

“Do you play often?”

"As much as I can. They play without me if I'm…away.” He squinted towards the stage. “They're a good bunch of people." 

“Jack! Got yourself a dance partner?” A voice boomed from behind her. Sam and the colonel looked up as the broad-shouldered bartender joined them, in each hand a pint which he set down in front of them. The black liquid slopped over the rim, the golden head trailing slowly down the side of the glass. “Jack here is the finest bodhran player in the Springs.” He winked theatrically at Sam. “And he's single.”

“Mike…” the colonel began, but Sam cut him off. As soon as she had seen him with the band, she had known that Colonel O’Neill didn’t belong here. This was Jack’s territory. 

“Is that so?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at Jack. She took a sip of the fresh stout. 

The corner of his mouth quirked upwards and his eyes took on the gleam they'd had when he told her he 'liked women'. 

She flushed and looked away. He so rarely looked at her like that these days, she'd forgotten how to defend herself against it. The days of challenging him to arm wrestle were long behind them. The heat was still there, though, not the flash burn of anger and irritation, but the slow smoulder of desire and…and everything she never put a name to. Then she turned back to him. Couldn't she, just this once, acknowledge it all? 

Her gaze roved over him in a way she would never normally allow herself. She let the fire she normally suppressed flicker across her face. 

Jack licked his lips. Abruptly, he shifted around to face the bar and took a long drink from his pint. 

Mike was oblivious to their unspoken exchange. “Aye. And he knows how to move those feet of his, as well as his hands.”

“I guess he'll have to show me.”

“Mind that he does,” Mike chuckled as he moved away. 

“Are they really going to start dancing? I don't think there's enough space in here.” 

“I'm not sure you'd be able to stop them.”

In the not-quite-comfortable pause that followed, Daniel pushed his way towards them and insinuated himself at the bar. 

"So," he drawled, "Apparently you've been playing with these guys for two years, they know you're a colonel, but they think you do some kind of quality control for the Air Force. Except for Jim on the guitar who insists you do covert 'clean-up' jobs." Even his air quotes expressed his glee at this new material with which to mock the colonel. 

The colonel shrugged. "He works at the Academy. Even amongst the civilians there are rumors," he parried with unruffled calm. "It's how he accounts for the frequent absences and the occasional injuries."

Daniel lifted a finger, ready for another round, but he was interrupted by Teal'c. 

"I believe you are required, O'Neill."

Sure enough, the band were finishing up their drinks and the accordion player was standing on his chair, searching the room. When he spotted the colonel he cupped his hands around his mouth. 

“Oi! Jack! Stop chatting up the ladies and get your ass back here!”

The colonel knocked back the rest of his Guinness. "Stick around." 

His eyes were on Sam, and the question in them was clear. Without knowing exactly what she was agreeing to — another beer, a dance, a longer glimpse at a side of Jack he'd never shown her before — she agreed to it all with a single nod. 

Daniel slid into the space the colonel had left.

Sam felt a stab of annoyance. "You're not going to let him forget this, are you?"

"Nope." 

She expected the band to burst straight into a raucous tune, but instead they were all waiting for Jack to begin. He started tapping out a complicated rhythm, which took even her mathematical brain a few seconds to find the pattern in, then was quickly joined by the bright, lilting melody of the violin. 

"He's actually really good," Daniel said, sounding as proud as he was surprised. 

"Best bodhran player in the Springs, according to the bartender."

"O'Neill is a man of many talents," Teal'c noted, as if they needed reminding. 

Almost to herself, Sam added, "And many secrets."

"Come on," Daniel said, passing Sam another Guinness. "Let's go watch from the front."

"We don't want to distract him," warned Sam. 

"Then perhaps you should remain here," Teal'c replied. 

Sam ignored the slight emphasis on the pronoun and followed Daniel towards the stage anyway. There wasn't any reason to worry, though. All Jack's attention was focused on the accordion player who seemed to be in charge. It was strange to see her commanding officer in the subordinate's role for once, eyes on the leader, waiting for his signal to change the melody. There must have been some kind of signal, because the tunes morphed from one to another without a hitch. After a while, Sam gave up looking for the patterns or trying to work out the mechanisms, and relaxed into the beat and the heady warmth of the stout in her stomach. 

Finally there was a pause, and a young woman joined them into the stage to cheers from the crowd. 

"Got your dancing shoes on?" she called over the noise. 

"Uh oh," Sam muttered, shrinking away from the space that was rapidly forming in the room. 

"Come on, Sam," Daniel tugged at her elbow. 

"No, no, no, Daniel. I'm not dancing." 

"Teal'c?" 

Daniel quickly stepped away from Teal'c's death glare. 

"You two are boring."

"And you've had too much to drink," Sam retorted. 

She caught Jack's eye and he gave her an encouraging smile, to which she responded with a vigorous shake of her head. He gestured again, and again she signaled no. 

He rolled his eyes and waved the accordion player towards him. When he said something into the other man's ear, the other musician laughed and clapped him on the shoulder before turning to relay his message to the rest of the band. The woman spoke into the microphone. 

“By special request, we're going to start tonight with a two-hand dance, for those of you who might be feeling a little intimidated by a reel. So get your partners, everyone!” 

Jack abandoned his seat on the stage and strode over towards Sam. She tried backing into the crowd but the press of people behind her wouldn't give way.

"Come here, Carter." 

"I really don't—" 

He held out his hands to her. "Sam…" 

It wasn't fair. She was never going to be able to resist him when he did that.

She put her hands in his. 

Pulling her into a space, he tucked her into his left side with an arm clasped firmly about her waist. She hesitated for a heartbeat, then wrapped her own arm around him. The soft, thin flannel of his shirt under her palm felt very different to the crisp canvas uniform she was used to. 

She cast a quick, nervous glance around the room for the others. It was no surprise that Daniel had found himself a partner, probably before he'd more than  _ looked _ at the hastily-cleared dance floor. Teal'c had settled back against the windows, surveying the scene like it was some kind of alien courtship ritual that he'd rather not be caught up in. He wasn't there for long, however. While Sam watched, a tiny, white-haired woman wearing sensible shoes and a determined expression soon marched him into the circle of couples.

Then the music started and it seemed the whole room lurched into motion with it. Sam would have stumbled with the suddenness were it not for the rock-solid grip Jack had around her. After the first few halting steps, she leaned into his arm and let him guide her. He danced with the same air of nonchalance that Colonel O'Neill wore like armor ninety per cent of the time. But every step was placed with a precision that she recognised from the remaining ten per cent: when he sighted a sniper rifle; when he sat in the cockpit of a jet. Or a recently-acquired, USAF-stickered death glider. 

When the dance ended, Sam struggled to smother her disappointment, but Jack's arm lingered around her waist after the tune changed.

He looked down at her. "Ready for a reel now?"

"No?" 

Jack laughed softly, and positioned her in a line of people before backing into the line opposite.

This dance was easier, because she didn't need to be coordinated. She clapped in time with everyone else, and waited for someone to swing her around and back to her place. She wasn't the only one who stumbled or bumped into their neighbors, but through it all she was aware of Jack's eyes on her, conscious that the more she loosened up, the louder she laughed, the wider his smile grew. 

When the tune came to an end, she bent double, her hands on her knees, breathless. 

"Sam? We're going to head out." 

She straightened and came face to face with Daniel, Teal'c hovering a step behind him.

"I still have to pack," Daniel reminded her. "Teal'c's going to drive me home. You need a lift?"

She glanced over at Jack, who was being heckled by his bandmates into taking his seat on the stage again. He caught her eye and gave her a crooked grin. 

"You know what? I think I'll stay a bit longer."

Teal'c's and Daniel's goodbyes were almost drowned out by the beginning of the next tune. Sam fought her way back to the bar for some water. 

"Can I—" 

Mike put a Guinness in front of her. 

"This is the third St Patrick's Day Jack's spent here, but the first time I've ever seen him smile like that." He pointed to the drink. "This one's on the house." 

Before she could say anything he'd moved away to take the next order. 

She sat out the next dance and sipped her pint as pensively as anyone could when the sharp edges of their thoughts had been sanded down and smoothed off. But she wasn't allowed to stay still for long; she soon found herself herded back to the dance floor and she couldn't think of any reason to refuse. It was nice to just…let go…for once. 

Finally, when Sam was dizzy and flushed and her heart was racing along with the music, a familiar pair of hands caught her around the waist.

"Having fun, Carter?" 

She pressed her palms against her flushed cheeks. 

"Come on."

He whirled her, unerringly, out of the ring of dancers and through the door. Sam gasped as rain drove straight into her face and they broke into a run, Jack's arm still around her, until they could duck under the branches of the nearest tree.

“They know how to party," Sam gasped, breathless from the dancing and the cold air filling her lungs, chilling her from the inside out. 

“Yeah.” 

Jack was short of breath too, and Sam wondered with concern whether he would still be feeling the effects of the anoxia from the failed F-301 test. 

“I thought Janet sent you home to rest.” 

His face darkened for a moment and Sam felt fear as sharp as everything else felt fuzzy. Did he blame her as much as she blamed herself? 

But then his frown lifted. “Uncle Barry used to say, 'a change is as good as a rest'. And in there,” he tipped his head towards the pub, “that's about as different as you can get from up there.” He peered through the branches towards the sky.

In a rush, she said, “I'm so sorry. I should never have let the test go ahead."

With tears gathering and threatening to fall, she leaned back against the tree and pressed her hands to her eyes. But then Jack's warm fingers closed around her own, easing them from her face. 

"You're too hard on yourself, Carter. I was just as excited as you were to get that thing off the ground. Blame the vindictive sonofabitch snake. Just…don't work yourself into the ground trying to make up for something that wasn't your fault."

"I came here tonight, didn't I?" 

"You did."

She bit her lip to distract herself from the burning in her eyes that wouldn't fade and she felt his thumbs beginning to stroke the backs of her hands. 

"It's just that everything recently has gone so wrong—" 

He tugged on her hands, pulling her closer, and then wrapped his arms tight around her. She hugged him back with all the strength she could spare. 

"It hasn't all been wrong. I mean, yeah, some of it has really sucked—" 

She choked a quavering laugh into his shoulder. 

"But there were some good moments, too."

She suddenly, desperately, wanted to see them, those good moments, reflected in his eyes. She lifted her head and there they were, bright like stars.

There  _ he _ was. 

Her fingers curled tighter into his shirt and she breathed in a deep breath. 

But then she sighed and closed her eyes. There were some things that they couldn't change, no matter how much they might want to. 

Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

"Thank you," he whispered.

He didn't say what for. 

She lingered there for a moment longer, feeling Jack's breath on her face, the warmth of his body against hers. Only after she had freed herself from his arms did she open her eyes. 

The colonel gestured towards the pub. "I have to go back." 

"Yeah."

"Do you—" 

"I don't think so, sir."

His head drooped in a resigned nod.

"I'm glad you came tonight."

"Me too."

The rain had stopped. Sam stepped out from the shelter of the tree and shivered. 

"You know, next time you go AWOL, we'll know where to look for you, now."

"You always find me, Carter."

As she turned away, she hoped that would always be true. 

* * *

_ A few weeks later…  _

Sam collapsed onto a stool and let herself topple over onto her lab bench. She pillowed her head on her arms and breathed out a long, exhausted sigh of relief. 

"Carter?" 

She gathered herself to stand up again but the colonel added quickly, "As you were, Carter."

"Thank you, sir." 

There was a creak of springs as he lowered himself to a chair. 

"I thought I told you not to work yourself into the ground."

"I'm not—" 

"You're sleeping on your desk." 

She raised her head. Colonel O'Neill sat opposite her, wearing civvies and a concerned expression. 

"I've been working on General Bauer's bomb all day, sir. With the other scientists. And the Pentagon techs."

"Ah."

Her head thudded onto her arms again. 

"You look like you need a rest, Carter."

She nodded, and the action massaged her forehead in a way that felt so good she almost missed the colonel's next words. 

"Come for a drink."

It took a few seconds for her to work out what he was saying. She pushed herself upright. "A drink, sir?" 

"I thought we could go back to Rilea's." 

She didn't even need to think about it. 

"OK." 

He smiled. "No dancing tonight, though."

"But are you playing?" 

"If the incentive's right." 

She raised an eyebrow in challenge. "If you lose to me at pool…" 

"That's not fair, Carter. I always lose against you."

Sam hopped off the stool. 

"See you there in twenty?" 

"Deal." 

As they made their way out, the colonel bent lower, saying quietly, "You've never taken me up on my other invitations."

Sam waited for an airman to pass before replying. "To go fishing? It's not exactly the same thing."

"Says who, Carter?" 

She flashed him a smile as she stepped into the elevator.

"Maybe it's time for a change." 


End file.
